Choosing A Photo To Convert To Pencil

Choosing A Photo To Convert To Pencil

To get the best results possible from your pencil portrait, it is important to choose your original photo carefully in order to convert it to pencil successfully using software.

Factors such as lighting, shadows and the facial expression can all impact in the accuracy of the end result.

A good checklist which I ask my customers use is the one I use and it looks like this:

Make sure the subject’s head is at least 1.5 inches from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin.

Make sure the subject isn’t squinting.

Make sure you can see the subject’s eye colour clearly.

Make sure there are light and dark areas.

Make sure the lighting is good, i.e. no glare or silhouette

You can use either a colour photo or black and white photo.

You can use either a hard copy or a digital copy.

By following this list, you will be giving yourself the best start to your pencil portrait possible.

The photo to the right is a great example, and will be the photo I will be using throughout this tutorial.

Editing The Photograph Using Software

Now you have chosen a great photo to convert to your pencil portrait, we need to make sure the features are fully clear. We will do this by;

Cropping the photo so we have just head and shoulders in our view.

Enlarging the image using image editing software

Converting the image to black and white to enhance the contrast between light and dark areas.

Tip; If you have chosen a hard copy, use a scanner to import it to your computer and convert to digital format.

Of course, if you are not comfortable using a computer for more than Internet browsing, then using either an online or brick-and-mortar photo processing service may be better at a small cost.

If this is the case, tell your processor you want the photo to be 12×8 inches or A4 size and converted to grayscale.

Once you are comfortable with pencil portraiture, you can choose any size you want; I often convert my images on my PC to the exact size and contrast I want, and then process them at 15″ x 10″, which fills an A3 sheet pretty well.

This costs around £1.20 at PhotoBox, an online photo processing service and around £2.00 on the high street if you prefer bricks-and-mortar.

What Is Image Editing Software?

Image editing software is simply a program installed on your laptop or desktop computer which allows you to change elements of the photo. If you have ever cropped a photo, then you have already used a form of image editing software.

In fact, if you use Windows, then you already have such a program installed called Windows Photo Gallery. You can use this if you already have a clear photo with just head and shoulders; simply alter your settings under ‘Adjust Colour’ so they look similar to the photo on the left, and print it out selecting ‘A4′ at the top and ’20 x 25’ on the right.

If you are a Mac user however, then there are plenty of free applications you can download, Paintbrush or Sketchbook to name a couple. Use the same principles as set out above.

The best free image editor I have come across, and the one I used before I upgraded to Photoshop is GIMP.

GIMP is an Image Manipulation Program and is free open source software under the GPLv3 license. It runs under the GNU Project (hence G.I.M.P), which is a project as old as I am which is dedicated to making software accessible to everyone in order to get the most out of your computer. Cool, eh.

Hey, Great lessons in this website. Has really inspired me, artistially inept though I may be. Just curious though, have you ever drawn someone with small eyes? I have a friend who has pretty small eyes to begin with, and when smiling, the eyes are more or less in a squint. But to me, that is essentially my friend, it would look strange seeing a portrait with eyes wide open. What are your thoughts?

I hear ya with the squint issue. I have drawn a couple of subjects with “smaller eyes” and the squint, and I know it is really tempting to make the eyes more obvious and “enlarge” them if you like, but as you said yourself, he is your friend and part of him and his character is his eyes. It is part of who he is, and so I would definitely just draw what you see and don’t be tempted to add anything that isn’t really there. Doing so would change the whole portrait.

Hope it works out, and be sure to post it on the Facebook Page when you’re happy to.